Diversity of electron-bifurcating CO2-fixing supercomplexes in methanogens
Pablo San Segundo-Acosta, Shunsuke Nomura, Joao Pedro Fernandes-Queiroz, Evgenii Protasov, Jörg Kahnt, Masanori Kaneko, Georg Hochberg, Seigo Shima, Bonnie J. Murphy · 2026
Read Diversity of electron-bifurcating CO2-fixing supercomplexes in methanogens by Pablo San Segundo-Acosta, Shunsuke Nomura, Joao Pedro Fernandes-Queiroz, Evgenii Protasov, Jörg Kahnt, Masanori Kaneko, Georg Hochberg, Seigo Shima, Bonnie J. Murphy (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13580544.txt.
Description
Pablo San Segundo-Acosta and co-authors reveal a new shape for the carbon-fixing machine of methane-making microbes, in a 2026 study. These microbes turn carbon dioxide into methane with the help of electron-splitting partners. The machine pairs a carbon-fixing enzyme with an electron-splitting complex and a hydrogen-using partner. A cousin microbe group was known to hold the machine in a ring shape.
The new structure, from a heat-loving methanogen, is mirror-symmetric rather than ring-shaped. Two branch-like proteins link the active sites and may hand electrons to other partners too. The authors argue the mirrored form is the ancestral one. Ring forms likely arrived later by gene transfer between groups, helping microbes thrive where food is scarce. The work deepens the story of how methane making evolved.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Pablo San Segundo-Acosta, Shunsuke Nomura, Joao Pedro Fernandes-Queiroz, Evgenii Protasov, Jörg Kahnt, Masanori Kaneko, Georg Hochberg, Seigo Shima, Bonnie J. Murphy |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 58 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |